Progressives who hoped The Apprentice might serve as an “October Surprise” that could harm Donald Trump’s chances in next month’s presidential election were sorely disappointed when the movie bombed in its theater debut.
The Apprentice, a negative take on Trump’s early years, opened to just $1.6 million over the weekend, roughly translating to less than 10 people in each showing at the 1,750 theaters that featured the movie.
To put that into perspective, Vindicating Trump earned more per theater when it opened last month, even though the Dinesh D’Souza pro-Trump movie is a documentary, and that genre typically does not fare nearly as well as narrative films like The Apprentice do.
For a more apples-to-apples comparison, Reagan, a narrative film about a different former president, Ronald Reagan, opened six weeks ago to $7.7 million, nearly five times more than The Apprentice.
The Apprentice was written by liberal journalist Gabriel Sherman and stars Sebastian Stan as a young Donald Trump; Maria Baklova as his former wife, Ivana Trump; and Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn, an attorney who is portrayed as the future president’s amoral mentor.
Trump is portrayed in The Apprentice as raping his first wife, Ivana, and attending a gay orgy with Cohn. It also suggested he’s a racist landlord who stooped to blackmail.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, mainstream critics positively reviewed the film and it was nominated for the prestigious Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
Before the final numbers were even tallied, mainstream outlets were coming to the aid of The Apprentice, offering excuses for its underperformance.
Daily Variety, for example, wrote that it bombed because “the most chilling thing about Donald Trump is offscreen.”
The Telegraph, meanwhile, noted that The Apprentice even underperformed the re-release of A Nightmare Before Christmas, a 30-year-old movie available for streaming.
The outlet blamed the bad box office on bad publicity, given it was partially financed by Trump ally Dan Snyder, the former owner of the NFL’s Washington Redskins (now the Commanders).
“When he saw the completed picture, Snyder threw the hissy fit to end all hissy fits, ensuring that legal letters flew in all directions bearing the words ‘cease and desist’,” The Telegraph wrote Monday.
The contrast between The Apprentice and the Reagan movie couldn’t be more stark, as the 40th president is portrayed as someone who rose from humble beginnings, stood up to bullies as a child and an adult, had a clear moral compass and crushed Communism after he rose to leader of the free world.
Also unlike The Apprentice, the Reagan film received largely negative reviews from mainstream critics, though audiences liked it: hence, at Rotten Tomatoes more than 5,000 verified users rated the film “hot” while 19 professional critics rated it “rotten.”
The discrepancy between what moviegoers think as opposed to what critics think is among the largest in the history of the site, which was founded 26 years ago and is owned by Comcast.
Among those praising Reagan was Trump, who appeared at a rally in Coachella over the weekend with Dennis Quaid, the star of the film.
At the rally, Quaid, who has endorsed Trump, channeled candidate Reagan circa 1980 by asking attendees whether they were better off today than they were four years ago.
Later, Trump said at the rally: “That movie was great,” then he motioned toward Quaid and said, “Ronald Reagan. Did you like him? I think you have to like him to play him that well.”
Trump didn’t mention the other film in theaters that is also about a former president, The Apprentice, though his legal team also reportedly sent its director, Ali Abassi, a cease and desist letter. The Trump campaign has called the movie “pure fiction” and “malicious defamation.”
On Monday, Trump took to social media to slam Sherman’s film.
“A FAKE and CLASSLESS Movie written about me, called, The Apprentice (Do they even have the right to use that name without approval?), will hopefully ‘bomb.’ It’s a cheap, defamatory, and politically disgusting hatchet job, put out right before the 2024 Presidential Election, to try and hurt the Greatest Political Movement in the History of our Country, “ Trump wrote on TruthSocial.
Appearing Friday on CNN, Abassi defended his movie and said it was fair to all sides.
“Our liberal friends were saying this is not critical enough of him, and the Trump camp is saying this is too critical … that’s the point of being nonpartisan,” he said.
